GO TO SOURCE NEW DELHI, INDIA, March 27, 2001: Maestro Ravi Shankar was bestowed with an honorary knighthood in recognition of his services to music. “My heart is full. If only I could express the deep emotion and gratitude that I feel,” said the overwhelmed sitarist, sharing the moment with wife Sukanya and daughter Anoushka. While conferring the award, England’s…
GO TO SOURCE DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA, March 27, 2001: The name of Mahatma Gandhi, whose campaign of passive resistance was born in South Africa, is expected to be one of 20 to be immortalized in marble here. Special marble tiles, each engraved with the still closely guarded names, and in some cases, the palm prints of those to be honored,…
GO TO SOURCE USA, March 28, 2001: Thousands of foreign workers in America’s slumping high technology sector are set to lose their jobs and their right to stay in the US. In the past few years, the US government has given hundreds of thousands of foreigners with high-tech skills H1-B temporary work permits. If they are laid off, they are…
GO TO SOURCE DALLAS, USA, March 24, 2001: According to Hindu tradition, the saint Shri Dnyaneshwar — while still a child, in response to a challenge — made a buffalo recite the Vedas, proving that all creatures are united by the soul. Later he wrote Dnyaneshwari, a religious work still popular today. Maharashtrians here are staging a play on his…
GO TO SOURCE DALLAS, USA, March 03, 2001: Participants in the Sikh ceremony called the Akhand Path, a continuous reading of the 1,430 pages of the Sikh sacred book, the Sri Guru Granth, can drop in at any time day or night. There’s a religious requirement that the kitchen always be open. The ceremony, done for reasons such as a…
GO TO SOURCE SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, March 27, 2001: The Rev. Robert Frisken of Christian Community Schools Ltd. here does not want the stories about Harry Potter, the trainee wizard, banned, but suggests the books should carry warning stickers before they are placed in school libraries. “The ordinary person is typified as being bad because they have no magic powers, and…
GO TO SOURCE LONDON, ENGLAND, March 24, 2001: Everybody is doing it, or everybody wants to do it. From ashtanga to hatha, yoga classes are popping up to accommodate modern successful people. In the past 18 months, the yoga craze has evolved and melted into the life of a Londoner. Quoting Cat de Rham who teaches Iyengar-based classes in Chelsea,…
Source: The Guardian UNITED KINGDOM, March 7, 2001: Ruling that the advertisement caused a personal offense to their culture and religion, the Independent Television Commission has banned a recent advertsements promoting Chicken Tonight. It showed a Hindu woman meditating and chanting in front of a chicken. She became upset with the chicken for not joining her. Hindus were offended by…
GO TO SOURCE LEICESTER, U.K., March 18, 2001: The focal point of the Leicester’s Asian community is Belgrave Road known as the Golden Mile because more gold jewellery is sold here than anywhere else in Europe. The road’s display of 6,000 lights during Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights is said to be the biggest outside India. The city’s major…
GO TO SOURCE CAMBODIA, JANUARY 13 2001: In the jungled retreat of Kobal Spien, former Khmer Rouge guerrillas act as tourist guides to point out intricate Hindu and Buddhist carvings such as the River of 1,000 Lingas; the riverbed is dotted with sculpted stone carvings, including Siva Lingas, stone frogs, Buddhas and the many-headed Naga snake, all of which are…